The Tuna Surprise is still rotting in your stomach. You'll
never forget the ringing of the fire alarm, mercilessly pulled by
pranksters in your dorm. Nightmares may forever jolt you out of
your sweat-drenched and delusional sleep, as you beg your professor
not to give you another surprise bioanthropology quiz.

And now you want to go to graduate school?

Even if you don't, your peers do, and they aren't
interested in studying Elizabethan poetry. "[In their
admissions essays,] 99 percent of the students say they want to
someday run their own companies," marvels Marie Mookini,
director of MBA admissions at Stanford University, home to one of
the nation's top entrepreneurial education programs.

It wasn't always this way. According to the Los Angeles
Times, in 1971, only 16 four-year colleges and graduate
programs offered courses in entrepreneurship. Today, some 400
universities offer entrepreneurial programs and majors, and that
doesn't even include what you can find at community
colleges.

The average age of graduate students hasn't changed over the
years, at least at Stanford. "They've always been around
26," says Cathy Castillo, a public relations director at the
school. But there are many more 26-year-old business-owner
wanna-bes than there used to be. Eight years ago, when Mookini took
her position, she and her staff waded through 4,100 applications.
Last year, the applications had swelled to 7,000.

Every year, for nine intense weeks, Mookini, her four-person
staff and half a dozen freelancers hunch over desks to read and
weed, hoping to harvest the brightest and best--for a mere 360
seats. Some students want in so badly, they add (not recommended)
extras to their applications, like flowers, a family album and
Chinese food. Others have sent videotapes instead of essay
questions. (Before you think, "Hey, why didn't I think of
that?" be glad you didn't: Mookini says, "That tells
us you can't read or follow directions.") And one
applicant took the essay questions too seriously--he submitted
200 pages. ("He got in, in spite of the essay
questions," groans Mookini, who pleads, "Don't tell
your readers--we'll just get copycats." You've been
warned.) "It's hard to know what will happen this
year," admits Mookini, who recently purchased her first pair
of reading glasses. "The number of applicants keeps going up.
Unfortunately, the class size doesn't."

So why all the fuss? What's behind the academic explosion in
entrepreneurial education? If you embrace the ignorance-is-bliss
theory, skip the next two paragraphs. Otherwise, read on:

"I think a special contract was established many years ago,
which was essentially employment for life," says David Wilson,
president of the Graduate Management Admission Council, which
developed the dreaded GMAT exam. (Remember your SATs? Same
concept.) Over the years, that contract has been shattered, and
people are going into business for themselves on purpose,
rather than waiting to be fired and then looking for alternatives.
Says Wilson, "[People are] saying `Hey, wait a minute, time
out. If [employees] are giving their
lives . . . for 20 and 30 years and, at age 45,
can suddenly be thrown out on the street, why the hell should I
trust any of these people?' "

"Every time you pick up The Wall Street Journal,
somebody's being downsized," agrees Bob Schwartz, director
of the entrepreneurship concentration at the University of Texas at
Austin. (Adding fuel to the argument: A recent Gallup poll on
entrepreneurial education found that seven out of 10 high school
students want to start their own businesses.) But Schwartz adds the
entrepreneurial education boom is helped by other factors, such as
a thriving economy and even the media (Who,us?):
"It's infectious."

Parry Singh won't argue. If there are amusement parks for
entrepreneurs, Singh discovered his in Evanston, Illinois, at the
Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
(OK, so the name's not as catchy as Six Flags.) Singh, due to
graduate next month, was an electrical engineer before leaving his
post at a firm that had expanded from 100 to 3,000 employees.
"The level of learning had plateaued for me," says Singh,
29.

So he went to graduate school (again) and immersed himself in
business in a way he couldn't at an actual company. Singh
researched everything from cash flow to dividing equity. He plunged
down the Organizational Behavior roller coaster ("I had
managed people, but I never knew how to give them good feedback at
the end of the year") and whooped it up on the Marketing
Strategies ride: "If you're a company creating a niche
market, what do you do when a major, mass-market company comes into
your market? How do you react? What are your strategies?
[Professors] don't necessarily tell you what you should do, but
they tell you what other companies have done."

The Ventures Class was the ride that may ultimately make Singh
glad he paid the high price of admission. Students were required to
develop a business plan, which Singh did with his now-business
partner, Ubhash Bedi, 26. The two devised Ethnicgrocer.com, a
company that specializes in delivering exactly what the name
suggests, and some investors determined it was a good enough plan
to take it out of the classroom. The enterprise will be split into
segments--Indiangrocer.com, and then later, Mexicangrocer.com and
Chinesegrocer.com. Someday, they may ruletheworld.com. But for now
Singh hasn't seen any profits--a daunting prospect as college
loans pile up.

Between his business and classes, Singh's working just as
hard as he ever did at a job--but he's not getting paid.
Rather, he's the one paying. "It's a very expensive
proposition," he says. "School ends up costing an average
of $100,000 for every two years, and then there's the cost of
lost salary, which could be $100,000 a year as well. [You] could be
down as much as $300,000 [after getting an MBA]."

Or up just as much.

Aruni Gunasegaram, 29, a '98 University of Texas grad and
former student of Schwartz, is president of Isochron Data Corp.,
the result of a contest sponsored by her alma mater. The
prestigious competition, dubbed Moot Corp., allows entrepreneurs to
present their business plans to a panel of investors. In their
international competition, the best plan wins $15,000. Gunasegaram
created the plan, and her partner, Erin Defosse, 29, created the
VendCast technology, which links soft-drink vending operators to
their machines so they can determine things like when to send
drivers to restock, rather than playing guessing games.

Before Gunasegaram's days at her university's Center for
Entrepreneurial Growth and Development, she was an accountant
toiling 60 hours a week. "Auditing was really boring,"
says Gunasegaram, who wasn't haunted by dreams of
bioanthropology quizzes but of punching numbers into a
computer.

Now, Gunasegaram labors 80 to 90 hours a week, but "I love
what I do. I'm much more interested in my work." Work that
has a major soft-drink company as a client. According to her
contract, "I'm not allowed to say which soft
drink," says Gunasegaram, "but it's one of the big
three--Dr. Pepper, Pepsi or Coke." And Isochron Data recently
attracted investors willing to fork over $1 million. It just goes
to prove that some things never change. To earn a lot, you still
have to learn a lot.

Northwestern University (Kellogg Graduate School of Management)

Located: Evanston, Illinois

Tuition per year: $25,872 full time; $33,989 part
time

Part-time or full-time: Both

Time needed to complete the program: two years full time,
with summers off; 2.5 years part time, including summers

Why it's worthy: The Entrepreneur Lab offers
beginning students opportunities to form teams and undertake
consulting assignments with companies--mostly ones in a start-up
incubator located near campus. Classes are reportedly first-rate.
Graeme Alexander, 29, loved a class appropriately titled,
"There Are No Rules." "I was surprised at how fluid
deal-making is," says Alexander. "There is no formula.
It's all about what two or more parties can agree on."

University of Southern California (Marshall School of Business)

Located: Los Angeles

Tuition per year: $21,374 full time; $28,500 part
time

Part-time or full-time: Both. Part-timers receive an
Executive MBA, instead of a traditional MBA. It's the same
thing, except classes are held evenings and weekends.

Time needed to complete the program: Two years (both full
time and part time)

Why it's worthy: The Lloyd Greif Center for
Entrepreneurial Studies takes its name very seriously. While the
building is new, the program has been around since 1971.
"It's the best overall program for budding
entrepreneurs," one 28-year-old student raved.
"Unbelievable teachers and contacts," said another.

Real-world experience can also be found here. You could join the
Entrepreneur Venture Management Association, which features a
zillion different events, "such as speakers, entrepreneurs and
venture capitalists," says 26-year-old student Lorena Martin,
"or idea forums, where students present their ideas and
receive feedback in a confidential environment."

University of California, Los Angeles (The John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management)

Located: Los Angeles

Tuition per year: In-state $11,019; out-of-state
$20,703

Part-time or full-time: Both

Time needed to complete the program: Two years (full
time); three years (part time)

Why it's worthy: Every year, the Harold Price Center
for Entrepreneurial Studies oversees up to half a mil in seed
capital, which is sometimes provided to Anderson students with
potentially dynamite businesses in mind. The Entrepreneur
Association is the club to be in, and the 350 students can
choose from 25 programs to be involved with, such as the Mentor
Program or the Venture Development Program. You'll have
discussions with groups like the Venture Capital Roundtable and be
inspired by speakers like the founders of Southwest Airlines and
Starbucks.

Babson College (F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business)

Located: Babson Park, Massachusetts (15 miles from
Boston)

Tuition per year: $22,600 for two-year program; $30,960
for one-year program; $8,184 for evening program

Part-time or full-time: Both. There's a two-year
program, a one-year program, and a program with all evening
classes.

Degree awarded: MBA

Sample course titles: "Assessing Business
Opportunities," "Growing Business in a Changing
Environment"

Why it's worthy: It's a veteran in
entrepreneurship studies. Founder Roger Babson was an entrepreneur,
and the school has offered entrepreneurial courses since the 1960s.
The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship functions as
classrooms and meeting places for students and their clients.
"There's a heavy emphasis on guest speakers in the
classroom, and the professors are excellent," says Greg
Johnstone, 28, who co-founded a technological company before he
applied to Babson.

"I learned franchising from the founders of Jiffy Lube and
Dunkin' Donuts," says Christian Lesstrang, 28. "I
took a class from a financier of Cellular One."

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan School of Management)

Located: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Tuition per year: $27,100

Part-time or full-time: Full-time

Time needed to complete the program: Two years, starting
every fall. (We hear the leaves in Massachusetts are really
pretty.)

Degree awarded: MBA

Sample course titles: "The Nuts and Bolts of
Business Plans," "Technology Entrepreneurship,"
"Entrepreneurship Without Borders"

Why it's worthy: Second-year student Joel Serface,
29, thinks it's the best college for entrepreneurs in the
world. He's president of the MIT Venture Capital &
Investment Club, which helps students learn how to find--and
spend--capital for their start-ups.

Crystal Trexel, 23, is a big fan of the classes. She especially
enjoyed "Product Design and Development," which brought
together MBA-ers, engineering students and the industrial design
crowd so teams of students could create a new product from
conception to prototype. Be aware: You'll enjoy yourself more
at MIT if your start-up is technology-based.

Why it's worthy: The school has an entrepreneurial
club, of course, and impressive speakers, like Peter Lynch and
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, frequently drop by the
campus to talk in formal and informal settings. But most impressive
may be the networking that goes on at Wharton, suggests Elizabeth
Woodcock, 28. "Wharton's alumni network is saturated with
successful entrepreneurs who are willing to give of their time to
speak to clubs and classes, and also to network," says
Woodcock, who adds that one of Wharton's alumni has become her
partner and financier in a health-care IT venture. "I have
been overwhelmed by supportive faculty and fellow
students."

Why it's worthy: Like the state, UTA's interest
in entrepreneurs is big. The graduate program has 20
internships at start-up companies, lots of professors who double as
entrepreneurs, an Austin Technology Incubator that specializes in
high-tech start-ups, and a very active club called the
Entrepreneurship Society.

Second-year student Laura Bennett didn't intend to be an
entrepreneur, but was so impressed by the curriculum she now plans
to start her own business someday. The school's location is
also a plus, Bennett says: "The Austin community is full of
small to medium-sized businesses that like to tap into MBA
knowledge. This provides us with a great learning experience. The
projects I've participated in have been mostly with large,
national companies. But I've also [had] classes where students
have worked with local companies, including Dell, Whole Foods and
several smaller technology companies."